Oral History Interview with Alma Enloe, May 18, 1998. Interview
K-0167. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007): Electronic
Edition. The Decline of the West Charlotte IdealEnloe, Alma,
interviewee Interview conducted by Grundy, PamelaFunding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services supported the
electronic publication of this interview.Text encoded by Mike MillnerSound recordings digitized by Steve Weiss and Aaron SmithersFirst edition, 2006108 KbThe University Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Chapel Hill, North Carolina2006.

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Oral History Interview with Alma Enloe, May
18, 1998. Interview K-0167. Southern Oral History Program Collection
(#4007)Series K. Southern Communities. Southern Oral History
Program Collection (K-0167)Pamela Grundy116 MbChapel Hill, N. C.Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill1998Oral History Interview with Alma Enloe, May 18,
1998. Interview K-0167. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)Series K. Southern Communities. Southern Oral History
Program Collection (K-0167)Alma Enloe29 p.Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina at
Chapel HillChapel Hill, North Carolina1998Interview conducted on May 18, 1998, by Pamela Grundy;
recorded in Charlotte, North Carolina.Transcribed by Unknown. Forms part of: Southern Oral History Program Collection
(#4007): Series K. Southern Communities, Manuscripts Department,
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.Original transcript on deposit at the Southern
Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill.

The electronic edition is a part of the UNC-Chapel Hill digital library, Documenting the American South.

An audio file with the interview complements this electronic edition.

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Library of Congress Subject HeadingsDocumenting the American South TopicsEnglishDesegregationEducational Institutions2006-00-00, Celine Noel and Wanda Gunther revised TEIHeader and created catalog record for the electronic
edition.2006-04-04, Mike Millner finished TEI-conformant encoding and final proofing.
Interview with Alma Enloe, May 18, 1998. Interview K-0167.
Conducted by Pamela Grundy

Transcript on deposit at The Southern Historical Collection, The Louis Round
Wilson Library

Citation of this interview should be as follows: “Interview K-0167, in
the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007, Southern Historical
Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill”

Alma Enloe misses her days at West Charlotte. She spends much of this interview
reminiscing about her time in one of the last all-black classes to graduate from
the school. Like many interviewees, she remembers West Charlotte as an extension
of Charlotte's African American community and the essential role teachers and
student activities played in keeping West Charlotte at the center. The marching
band was, and is, good enough to draw crowds. Teachers were deeply invested in
the lives of their students, and showed their commitment in and out of the home.
At school and at home, students learned discipline and the importance of
tidiness. This interview illustrates the depth of West Charlotte's importance to
its black students before integration.

Short Abstract

Alma Enloe remembers West Charlotte High School as an extension of the
pre-integration African American community in Charlotte.

Big school. You would have thought most of the teachers didn't know you
by your first name, or know who you were, or anything like that, but
they did. We took pride in our school. You couldn't come up on West
Charlotte and drop paper on our school grounds. We had rival schools,
Second Ward. Everybody was trying to get over to Second Ward. Somebody
from West Charlotte dated somebody from Second Ward, or somebody from
Second Ward dated someone from West Charlotte. Those were two rival
schools. We just had so much fun. There wasn't no drugs. We didn't know
anything about that. It was just having little get togethers and doing
our own thing. We looked up to our school teachers and they looked up to
us, too.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

Explain. How did that work?

ALMA ENLOE:

They could just call you by your name. By it being such a big school you
wouldn't think that was possible, but we all had a connection. With nine
of us going to school, my brothers and sisters before me being my role
models because I looked up to them. The teachers expected the same thing
out of you, the way your sisters and brothers acted.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

Where were you in the line of brothers and sisters?

ALMA ENLOE:

The sixth one. My oldest brother came out in the class of '59. He was
supposed to have come out in the class of '58, but when your birthday is
late you have to wait. So that happened to him. My older sister Mary
came out in '61. And then Floree should have come out in '61, but her
birthday was late so it threw her back with the twins. So we had three
graduating in the class of '63, and Kays Geary. Have you heard of Kays
Geary?

PAMELA GRUNDY:

Yes.

ALMA ENLOE:

He just recently passed.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

Yes, he did.

ALMA ENLOE:

He wrote about my sisters and brothers. He was saying not only do we
have the Kennedys running the White House, we got the Kennedys at 2644
Ingar Street running West Charlotte. The twins came out and Florea came
out in '63, and then I came out in '65. Warren, my brother that just
recently passed, he came out in '66. And Gould who went on to become a
professional basketball player, he's retired now. He lives out in
Dallas, Texas. He came out in '67. And Henry is the baby. He came out in
'68. So Kays Geary wrote again. West Charlotte finally gets the last
Kennedy to graduate. I tried to find clippings on it. My mother has
them, but it's been so long ago. Anything that went on in West Charlotte
we did it as a family. Even when other schools came and had football
games at West Charlotte. If they didn't have a football field, they
would use West Charlotte's field. Everybody in the neighborhood would
come up to the game. Didn't care whose game it was. We were there. And
some of the guys would try to sneak in up under the fence without
paying. But we had these two tough policemen, Rudy Torrence and this
other, Costner. Honey, they used to run those boys. But every Friday
during the football season they had a game we were there. I stayed right
there after school at University Park, and you could just walk right
through the path. And prom time, there's just so much that I don't
remember, and try to remember. But you sit back sometime and you
reminisce. I always said I wished I was back in my freshman year in West
Charlotte because I was running with my sisters and brothers who were
seniors at the time. And just because they were my sisters and brothers
I could run with them. But if you didn't have
anybody, you stayed in your place. It was just like that. Pop Miller,
have you ever heard of Pop Miller?

PAMELA GRUNDY:

Yes. I'm going to go talk to him. His brother, I think, has been sick so
he's been busy with that, but I'm going to go talk to him. Tell me about
him.

ALMA ENLOE:

He knew everybody by their first name. Back then I think a pack of
cigarettes was like twenty-six cents, and some of the girls were trying
to learn how to smoke and sneak in the bathroom. He would bamg on that
door, "All right, come out! I know you're in there. You come on out of
there." And I would be in there, but I didn't smoke. When I came out,
"Kennedy, you ain't got no business being in there. Get on to your
class." It was nobody getting mad because they did that. We knew they
were doing it for our own good. We just had a good time at school, and
sometime I wish I could just go back to that time, and sleep through all
this time that's going on right now. We didn't have a whole lot of new
books. Some of them got new books and by not being integrated we got
books that the white schools had used. You'd get a book and it had so
many people's names on there that had had the book before you. But we
still had to wrap those books in brown paper bag, or newspaper. Keep
those books and then turn them in at the end of the year and just start
all over. It was just great being a part of West Charlotte. I talk to a
lot of people today that went to school with me, but their children by
them living in different neighborhoods weren't able to go to West
Charlotte. But everybody wanted to go to West Charlotte. Everybody wants
to be known that they were a Lion. We had the marching band. Did Saundra
tell you about her brother Stanley?

PAMELA GRUNDY:

Yes.

ALMA ENLOE:

Yes, honey, they called us the high stepping marching West Charlotte
band. They would keep us at the end of the parade near Santa Claus,
because if West Charlotte had come first West Charlotte took the whole
square with them. Everybody ran behind West Charlotte. It was just
great.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

Did you participate in activities like the band when you were there?

ALMA ENLOE:

No, I didn't participate in the band. I was in the Glee Club and stuff
like that. They had New Homemakers of America. Of course, my brothers
and sisters participated in a lot. I had a brother on the basketball
team, a sister in the chorus, and my oldest brother was in the band. He
played the trombone. And the rest of them, we just went with the flow.
But they knew who you were. They knew you by name. We had some good
teachers then. A lot of them have passed on. Mr. Blake was the principal
when I was going there. As you came in that was his house up on the
corner right there at the church. His sister lives there now. I
understand, I never had gone in it, but they say that all of the colors
in there were maroon and gold.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

Like the school. Tell me a little bit more about him. You were saying
that he'd run by the bathroom.

ALMA ENLOE:

That was Pop Miller who did that. But there wasn't a teacher that you
couldn't go and sit down and talk to. They took time out for you, and I
know that the way the school system is it's hard for them to do that. I
just don't know what went wrong with the way the kids are today. It was
like when we were growing up any parent in the neighborhood could say
something to you if you had done something wrong, even spank you, and
nothing was said by the parents because they knew if another parent
chastised you that way, they knew you had done something wrong. I feel
for the kids today. It's just so much peer pressure.
It just wasn't like that when we were growing up. Nobody was trying to
compete with this person or that person. Some of them had their little
cliques, but we always came together when it came to supporting West
Charlotte. We were together.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

Why was that?

ALMA ENLOE:

I don't know. I just looked at it as being just one big family. It was a
lot of us that came from large families. My sister might know somebody
in another family that had sisters and brothers the same age. It was
just that we stuck together. If a fight or something broke out that was
shocking. There wasn't no guns. There just wasn't nothing like that. If
someone came up on our campus, we knew if they were a Lion or somebody
else. We knew, and we just protected our school that way and took pride
in it. It was just great.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

When you were in school what did the teachers talk to you about in terms
of careers? What were your ambitions? I know everybody had different
ones.

ALMA ENLOE:

Everybody had different ambitions. The teachers were willing to listen
to you and steer you in the right direction as far as what you wanted to
do. I wanted to be a nurse, but I never did go that way. I ended up
working for Bell South. But then the Lord turned it around and put me
here caring for my mom Carey, and that was just like nursing so I still
didn't miss my calling. I'm retired from Bell South now. I retired in
'95 and haven't had my retirement party or nothing because of all of
this that's been going on here. Teachers, if they saw you, you weren't
in class, they knew you weren't there, "Where are you supposed to be?"
"Well, I'm supposed to be so and so." "All right, get there." We went.
There wasn't no talking back or nothing like that. And I remember Daddy Townsend, he was a history teacher but he was
also in photography. He taught that, too. He used to sit up at his desk
with his eyes closed, and we thought he was asleep. He would give us
exams, and he said, "You can cheat as long as I don't catch you." But
see, we thought he had his eyes closed. But he didn't. I just don't even
really know how to explain it other than being family orientated. We
just stuck together and hung in there. Everybody wanted to be a Lion,
and I'm proud to have been one.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

Do you think that any of that had to do with you all sort of feeling
that everybody there was black and you were somehow together that way,
or was that something that you thought about?

ALMA ENLOE:

Some might say, you know how some people are prejudiced. Everybody they
say has a little bit in them, but I've been around different colors all
my life so I think it starts at home with the parents raising you the
right way and teaching you the right way. Some might say, well, you know
in order for us to have gotten more into being educated they had to
integrate because we did go without a lot of things that the white
school had and we didn't. Take, for instance, I was telling you about
the school books. I think I can count the times I got a new book, but
other than that they were books that so many people had had. And they
would be stamped Garinger High School and ( ), or whatever that was on
there. But that didn't stop us. We wanted to be educated. The parents
were stronger then. I don't know what it is now. It seems like to me not
with just the black race but all races, it seems the parents are afraid
of their children. Our parents coming up then, we didn't have to do
nothing. They gave us the eye, and we knew. Get yourself together. I
can't say really what it is, but I do know in order for us to get the
education everybody was getting. Some people would look at us and say
when we were just the blacks by ourselves, at least
we knew who the enemy was, saying white people. But now, everybody is
together and don't nobody know who's the enemy or what, so everybody is
just fighting everybody. You just can't say anything to these kids
today, and I don't. I don't know, I just don't understand it. It is
strange, because, like I say, my mamma, honey, could look at us, give us
that eye, and we got ourselves together. It's sad. That's the way now.
And the only one that I know that can fix it is the Lord, because people
got all these different kinds of attitudes about it and instead of
trying to work it together, we don't have that togetherness. Everybody
is just pulling apart, and it'll never work that way. The Lord to me is
the only one that's going to have to fix it.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

It seems like it's gotten bad.

ALMA ENLOE:

It's gotten worse.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

I ask everybody, and everybody sees it, but it's so hard to figure out
how it came to be.

ALMA ENLOE:

And you just wonder. I worked with a lady, Pat Vannoy. We were talking
one day, and she's white. She's a best friend to me. She was the first
one that greeted me when I went to Bell South. We were talking about
going to school. She brought it up. You wouldn't have thought that the
whites was interested in West Charlotte back then, but she said, "Honey,
we went to the parade just to see West Charlotte Marching Band." She
said that when people standing on the square left, she was right behind
them too. So it's always been a great school, and it still is. But the
people in it are going to have to keep it going to make it still great.
One time they said something about closing it. I said, "Close it! Not
West Charlotte!" I hope that doesn't happen because it's a landmark. Did
you know Northwest used to be West Charlotte?

PAMELA GRUNDY:

Right. Yes. Do you remember when they moved?

ALMA ENLOE:

I was young then, but my mom Carey graduated from West Charlotte. We
were living in University Park, and I remember when they started
building the new West Charlotte. At lot of people don't know that
though, that Northwest was really the first West Charlotte.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

I had talked to someone who had said that they had had a parade from the
old school to the new one when they went up to take over the school.

ALMA ENLOE:

Um hum. Yes, it was really something. And even today, I'll be fifty-one
this year, anything that goes on at West Charlotte, if they're having
homecoming parade, if I'm there, I'm there to watch the parade just to
see the band. That's how everybody did up there. By our staying in
University Park, there was so many of us that had big families, we would
just all gather and go right up to West Charlotte.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

You would go in big groups.

ALMA ENLOE:

Yeah. If we didn't go in a group, if you got up there, there was the
group. You got over there. We all hung together.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

From the neighborhood?

ALMA ENLOE:

Um hum. And even from the other neighborhoods. I never did ride a school
bus. Some of them that came to West Charlotte had to ride city busses.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

Because they didn't have school busses then.

ALMA ENLOE:

They had city busses that would go in the neighborhood and pick up the
students to bring them to West Charlotte, but I always lived in walking
distance. ( ). It was just great. The different teachers, you could pass
them and they knew your name. That's unusual, to be at a big school. I
graduated in the largest class at West Charlotte until it was integrated. A lot of my classmates, a lot of the guys
died in Vietnam. I can go in my yearbook and just pick out the ones that
have passed on. I think it was last year I had two classmates, one, it
was Yvette Roberts. Her last name was something else. I can't remember
what it was. Her close friend went to her funeral and died. That's how
close they were. Died at the cemetery. You would think going to school
years back and you're still best friends, and that close. But that's how
it was. I have a girlfriend that went to York Road. She says, "You know
everybody." I'll say, "Honey, with nine of us going to school, and my
brother knew this one's brother or sister and it just went on down the
line." You just knew everybody and got along. I'm not saying it was a
perfect school. They had their ups and downs, but we worked it as a
family, sticking together and making the school work.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

Can you think of an example of that where a problem arose and everybody
worked together to solve that, to work it out? Can you think of anything
specific that happened?

ALMA ENLOE:

Well, I can't. Nothing, other than West Charlotte sticking together and
Second Ward sticking together, and since they were rival schools we
fought. Not only just the football team, but it went on down the line.
The cheerleaders fought the cheerleaders, because somebody on that team
was going with somebody at West Charlotte. We were just two rival
schools doing the Queen City Classic. I wouldn't go to the games because
I thought maybe if they started fighting, I wasn't fighting, so I was
always baby sitting. But like I said, sticking together is what we did
at West Charlotte.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

That's such a nice experience to have.

ALMA ENLOE:

Oh, it was. I hope it's still that way, but I haven't been up there. It
hurt me when I went to West Charlotte one year. They had all of the
alumni, all of the classes together. They're going to have it this July,
they have it every three years, and they take you on a tour of the
school. I went one year, and I was just shocked to see West Charlotte
like it was. Some of the lockers were hanging off the wall, and I said,
"This is not West Charlotte." I don't know how it looks now, but I was
just shocked to see that. You couldn't come on our campus and drop
paper. Everybody just stuck together keeping our school, West Charlotte,
the best of all the schools.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

Do you remember coming in as a freshman? Do you remember what the
feeling was like when you first came to the school?

ALMA ENLOE:

Well, I left Northwest going to West Charlotte. I was excited, and then
afraid, too, going to senior high school. Like I said, I had sisters and
brothers to kind of help pave the way in. I always wanted to hang with
the older classes. I've always acted grown. The only way I could do that
was if my brothers and sisters allowed me to do it. They kept me in my
place though. It was just excitement. Looked down and saw my report
card, and it said graduating to the tenth grade, West Charlotte Senior
High School. Running around the campus down there at Northwest, "West
Charlotte! West Charlotte."

[Laughter]

ALMA ENLOE:

It was something. William, Mrs. Garret's son, went to West Charlotte,
too. He was a Lion. I just don't really, really know the words to
explain what West Charlotte meant to me and the school teachers, other
than they were there for you. Today I think teachers don't have time to
do a one-on-one thing with the students, but we had that. We had that
one-on-one with our school teachers.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

How did the teachers make that time back then? How did that happen?

ALMA ENLOE:

Staying up there. Going down the halls. Stopping. "I want to talk to
you." They told you when you could come. We would be in little groups
sometimes, and we could voice our own opinions. They made the time for
us.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

What kind of things would people talk to the teachers about back then?

ALMA ENLOE:

If they were having problems in some of the courses they were taking.
Sometimes relationships, family problems. Anything. It was just like
when you left mom and dad, you had mom and dad there at school, too. Mr.
Blake was just like everybody's daddy. They just made the time for you,
and they were strict. Of course, they were lenient in some things, but
they said, "If it's going to be this way, it's going to be that way."
But then we were allowed to voice our own opinions about it, too. We
would have all the classes come together in the gym, because we didn't
have a auditorium then, and just have a question and answer session, or
something like that.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

What would that be on, for example?

ALMA ENLOE:

Bettering our school, people going to college, just anything. Good
school counselors, we had that. But to me every teacher was like a
counselor. It was just family orientated. That's how it was.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

I guess the teachers stayed there a long time?

ALMA ENLOE:

Yeah. They put their time in. It was just like you went to school, and
you didn't care what time you left to go back home. Sometime you hated
to go to school, but I don't think there was a day that I hated to go to
West Charlotte.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

That is nice. What subject was your favorite?

ALMA ENLOE:

I liked English, and Daddy Townsend made me like history, because he
would pound that in us. I took data processing, and I wanted to take
either French or Spanish but during that time I had it on my schedule
but they had gone and hand picked different students to set up this data
processing class. It was Miss Fitz then, she's married now, taught that
class. I was hand picked, and then it really helped me when I went to
Bell South. That was good that they did that. But I was mad because I
was wanting to learn a foreign language. I knew they had changed off my
schedule. "I'm not going in no data processing class. I'm going down to
Miss Rice's Spanish class." I was sitting up there. She never did call
my name. There was a lot of us in there. She said, "Well, do I have
anybody in here whose name I didn't call?" And I raised my hand and some
others raised their hand. There's this other teacher coming in, Miss
Fitz, calling off, "You're supposed to be in my class." I didn't get to
take a foreign language.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

How did you get picked for that data processing class?

ALMA ENLOE:

I don't know how they did it. They just told us we were hand picked.
They just went and picked some out of different classes to make up a
class for data processing. We changed classes just like they do today.
But I enjoyed that. Really enjoyed that, reading the data card.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

Because back then it was the cards.

ALMA ENLOE:

Um hum, with the punches in them. I went to work and saw that and said,
"This was what I had at school," so I was able to relate to that.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

You said you came out in '65?

ALMA ENLOE:

'65.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

There must have been at that time some beginnings of the Civil Rights
activities, back in the early sixties. Was that ever something that
people talked about at West Charlotte, or that anybody did anything
related to at West Charlotte?

ALMA ENLOE:

Yeah, they talked about it. I remember my church. People were so mean
then, when you weren't used to that. We couldn't go to the parks. A lot
of things we just couldn't do because of segregation. They meant for us
to stay in our place. As far as going to the drug store, sitting down,
we couldn't do that. It was just unbelievable. I was in the NAACP and
took a trip to DC, Washington, and I met Bobby Kennedy. Shook his hand,
and I was saying, "Lord, I won't wash my hand again." because his hand
was just like cotton. And they called you than "N" word and all of that.
It was just terrible during that time. But we stuck together. We didn't
go just by ourselves because you never knew what was going to happen. We
didn't know nothing about weapons and drugs and stuff like that. We'd
sneak together beer or something like that, but too many didn't do that
that I hung out with. It was frightening during that time, looking over
your shoulder, but you didn't have to look over your shoulder at West
Charlotte because you knew you were at home. Now, you might have looked
over your shoulder when you went to another school.

[Laughter]

ALMA ENLOE:

Because they knew you if you didn't go to their school, because we would
cut class sometimes, sneaking. We did little things like that, but it
wasn't nothing about fighting or just getting in real trouble. We'd go
over to Second Ward and the guys would say, "There's some Lions." They
were Tigers. They would come over to our school. York Road were Wapati.
A lot of the guys had cars, but a lot of them didn't. We got around on the bus or we piled in together in
somebody's car and went different places. It was kind of rough during
that time. They call us the baby boomers anyway. There were so many of
us in our class. My class picture had to be two pictures instead of just
one. I can't remember how many it was, but we were the largest class at
West Charlotte until they integrated.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

It's big now.

ALMA ENLOE:

Oh yeah.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

How many were in your class?

ALMA ENLOE:

I can't remember. It was over eight hundred.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

Really? Wow.

ALMA ENLOE:

I have my t-shirt, but it's at my house in Shelby where we had our
thirtieth year class reunion, and they put everybody's name on the back
of the t-shirt. We had the largest class.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

I hadn't thought about the baby boom.

ALMA ENLOE:

I'll tell you, it was a bunch of us.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

Did you know each other from church as well?

ALMA ENLOE:

Yeah, from church and just living in the same neighborhoods. Like I
said, your brother knew maybe my sister or went to school with my
sister, and it just went on down the line with different ones so you
knew everybody. Not only just at West Charlotte but at other schools.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

Everyone was real close. Would you ever walk downtown to Second Ward to
go to any of those events down there?

ALMA ENLOE:

Yeah, we would go. They would have dances at the "Y" and that was over
in Brooklyn Bend, that's what they call that area. We braved it. We
went. I remember my mom telling me that she lived in Brooklyn, and this
guy had come over from West Charlotte to her house. Well, the Second
Ward guys found out that he was coming over to her house to see her just
because she lived here. They call this the West Side. He told her, "You
call a cab." When the cab came he was running, and he told the cab to
catch up with him because he didn't want them Tigers to catch him. It
goes way back that those two schools were rivals like that. I dated a
guy from Second Ward and I said, "There wasn't nothing like that Tiger
meat." I didn't even look at nobody at West Charlotte. That's how it
was. The girls were going to different schools getting the guys over
there, and the guys were coming to our school to get the girls over
here. We had our little rivals and had our little fights and stuff, but
we still dated each other. That made it good.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

So were there couples who would then get married and they'd have to

[unclear]

sometime?

ALMA ENLOE:

Yeah, that's the way it is now. A lot of them got married that way. None
of my brothers and sisters married anybody from West Charlotte. They all
went to other schools and married somebody there.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

That's interesting.

ALMA ENLOE:

Yeah, isn't it?

PAMELA GRUNDY:

How did that happen?

ALMA ENLOE:

I don't know how it happened, but my older brother married a girl from
York Road. My older sister married a guy from York Road. One of the
twins married a girl from Second Ward. It was just like that. Nobody
really dated. They had fun, they dated, but then
you had your eyes looking over this way and looking that way. Then how
that happened was that you went to church with them. I tell you, I could
go back during that time, some of it, and just sleep past all of this
time that's going on now.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

Maybe it was like if it was like a family, it was more like just dating
your sister or something like that.

ALMA ENLOE:

Yeah. And if you went anywhere, if they had something going on for the
younger ones my older sister and brother they had to take us. I remember
my sister was mad because she had to take me up to West Charlotte, and
she didn't want me tagging along with her. They had a football game and
during the half-time they had all the children bring their own hula
hoop. My sister had to take me. I don't think she really like that but
she had to take me anyway. We had some good times. We still sit around
and reminisce about growing up and going to school. We started out at
Double Oaks School. I went to Double Oaks. Then they had Fairview
School. Everybody just grew up knowing everybody.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

What did your parents do?

ALMA ENLOE:

My mother was a housewife, and my father worked at Southern Asbestos.
Then he retired from there and then he did janitorial work at Guaranty.
I remember I felt like we were the Waltons. It had snowed so hard one
time, and my daddy didn't drive. He drove. He had a truck, but it was
the company's truck, and we didn't have a car. Everybody got around on
the bus. If you didn't on the bus, then you walked. It wasn't nothing to
walk then anytime of the night. Nobody bothered you. It had snowed so
hard. It had snowed every Wednesday. I forget what year it was. We
worried about my daddy because he was working at Guaranty. He had
retired from his regular job and was just doing
something on the side. The busses stopped running, and he couldn't get
home. Mamma sent my brothers out. When I watched the Waltons when John
Boy was looking for his daddy one time, and my brothers went looking for
my daddy. Do you know where Guaranty High School is?

PAMELA GRUNDY:

Yeah. It's pretty far out.

ALMA ENLOE:

Yeah. So you know where Beatties Fort Road is. My daddy walked from
there. I remember when he walked in that door, and we all stripped his
clothes because he was frozen cold. We had our fireplace and a fire and
wrapped him. We were a close knit family anyway. I often think about
that. I used to call us the Waltons.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

Well, I'm sure you all had to all pitch in with nine kids.

ALMA ENLOE:

Yeah. We had our chores. My mother and father, they dressed us. We talk
to people today that know us after we've grown up and they say, "Honey,
your mamma and daddy worked, and they dressed you all." We came home,
and we got out of our school clothes and got into our play clothes. I
don't remember really going without anything. I do remember one time I
wanted a baby doll, and I didn't get a baby doll. I didn't get my first
baby doll until I got into seventh grade. I'm sure it was hard times
then, but I never did really see them. We had the love and affection
from our parents, and we just stuck together. I just lost my brother. He
was the first sibling to go. My daddy died in '77. Warren predicted he
was going to be the next one to go, but it took twenty years. That was
hard. I'm still trying to adjust to that now. You're just so used to
everybody being there. We're still a close knit family. If anything
happens we all are there. I live in Shelby. I've got one other brother,
we call him "Goo", he's in Dallas, Texas, but all the rest of them are
here.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

My parents live in Dallas.

ALMA ENLOE:

Oh, yeah? "Goo" left here and went on to play pro ball when it was the
NBA ad the ABA. He wasn't making no kind of money like these guys are
making now. He's retired from that. Now he works with children with
behavioral problems. He's real good with that.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

Well, I guess you did have quite a bit to say.

ALMA ENLOE:

Well, I got to talking.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

You started to remember things. Could you tell me just a little bit,
I've been interested, these people have been mentioning these football
games, when you're walking up to there. Can you describe what that was
like to walk, just how you would walk to the game and what it would look
like, and that kind of thing? Can you remember?

ALMA ENLOE:

Most of the games that we went to were on Fridays. Everybody just knew
when to go when it was time for the game. We would all just come out the
Park. People would come from across town. Even if you didn't pay to go
in, you just stood outside the fence and talked to everybody and watched
the game. Just to go up there. Anything that happened in West Charlotte,
we were there. It's still that way. They have the track meets and stuff
now, anything. My oldest brother and one of the twins, they leave right
out of my mamma's house right up there to West Charlotte. It's just that
we did that. Sit on the banks. But like I said, someone tried to sneak
in without paying, Rudy Torrence and this other policeman named Costner,
they didn't play that. Now they've got all of this stuff, child abuse.
There's just so much of that going on now. Back then when they chastised
you, the teachers had paddles, and they would hit you on your hand or
something like that. You can't touch these kids today, and some of the
need to be kind of spanked because talking doesn't
do it all for them. It wasn't like that when we were coming up. No. Like
I said, give you that eye. You knew how to act.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

Even at West Charlotte would they have a paddle sometimes?

ALMA ENLOE:

In Northwest they did. I don't remember getting paddled at West
Charlotte, but at Northwest when I was in junior high school we were
taking the California achievement test. Mr. Reed told us, "I'm stepping
out and no talking." So I guess we were going to test to see, so
everybody whispered. He just walked back in the door, "All right, get in
line." They had the guys make the paddles in the shop. He would just
sting your hand, but you would get mad and everybody would bust out
laughing. There wasn't no abusing you or anything like that. He was just
telling you you didn't do what I told you to do so you've got to suffer
the consequences. All you did was hold your hand out and turn. You
didn't want to see it. He'd just smack you, and you'd go back to your
seat. I can't remember them having paddles at West Charlotte, no.
Everybody carried themselves like they were supposed to carry
themselves. They had little fights. I saw two girls get in a fight one
time, but it wasn't nothing. The next day they were speaking to each
other. It was about a boy, but it wasn't nothing, knives and guns, and
stuff like that. There wasn't a thing like that.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

When you were there did they have a girl's basketball team?

ALMA ENLOE:

Yeah. They had a girl's basketball team. They played, too. You might see
some of them in those yearbooks.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

I'll look through these. It looks like you've got a lot of people
writing.

ALMA ENLOE:

They wrote stuff, and you don't realize how many people wrote in your
book until you go looking at it. Like I said, all nine of us went West
Charlotte so you can imagine how many yearbooks we
have. If somebody dies, or somebody gets sick, or they saw somebody and
you can't remember the name, we head to mamma's and pull out the
yearbooks. She said, "Look, you all take your yearbooks home with you
now." So I just recently brought those two home this year. They had a
girls' basketball team. They had a tennis team, football.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

I talked to a couple of years ago Miss Blake, Alma Blake.

ALMA ENLOE:

Yeah. She stays right up there. That was Mr. Blake's niece.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

I guess she coached the basketball.

ALMA ENLOE:

Yes. She coached the girl's basketball team.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

When you were there did the girls play Friday and then the boys, or did
the girls play at another time?

ALMA ENLOE:

They played at another time. Sometimes, I think, the girls played early
and then the last game would be the boys. They've done it like that, but
mainly it was all about those guys. Oh, they played some ball. My
brother, honey, all of them played that ball. They won the championship.
Was it in '63 or something.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

It was one of those years.

ALMA ENLOE:

It's up at the library. My brother is in that picture up there at the
library. They wouldn't be in those books, because that came out in '63
and that's '64 and '65.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

All these folks with their cakes.

ALMA ENLOE:

Commercial dietetics. They would cook and we would be standing at the
door, "Bring us something out." Then they would feed the football team
every Friday night when they had a game.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

Was it a bigger deal to be on the football team or on the basketball
team, or was it just the same?

ALMA ENLOE:

Both. It was the same, because everywhere you went you were a rival
school with somebody, Torrence Lytle and the school from Gastonia. I
can't even think of the name of that.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

Highland.

ALMA ENLOE:

Highland, um-hum. J. H. Gunn and some Stevens school. It was about West
Charlotte, football games, basketball games. You went to all of that.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

How about to be a cheerleader. Was that a big deal?

ALMA ENLOE:

Yeah, it was. You had to really know how to cheer to be a cheerleader,
or to be a majorette or a letter girl. Saundra's twin sisters were
letter girls. Every leg would go up at the same time. They were just
high stepping. And then the trumpet line. The guys could do the trumpet
like that. All you could hear was "Here comes West Charlotte." And
everybody just running right behind West Charlotte, and they still do
that.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

It sounds like being in the band was pretty important.

ALMA ENLOE:

Oh, yeah. It was, and that's Stanley right there.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

Right here, the drum major?

ALMA ENLOE:

Stanley Jones. He was high stepping. See how those girls put their legs
up that high? That's Saundra's sister Peggy.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

Okay, right there.

[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]

[TAPE 1, SIDE B]

[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]

PAMELA GRUNDY:

She went to Second Ward.

ALMA ENLOE:

Um-hum. I don't know what school. My daddy was from Allendale, South
Carolina. He went to a school there. But my mom Carey went to West
Charlotte and then William, her son, graduated from West Charlotte. Her
husband was from Texas, so he didn't go to school here.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

That's not the son that you brought up, is it?

ALMA ENLOE:

Yeah, William. That's him right here. That's the last picture.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

Was he living with you when he was going to West Charlotte?

ALMA ENLOE:

No, he was living with his parents here.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

Oh, with his parents. Okay.

ALMA ENLOE:

And I would baby sit. This wasn't the first house. When he was a baby
they lived off of Statesville on a street called Cole Avenue. It doesn't
even look the same over there any more. Then they moved to this side of
town. William was about eleven or twelve. He wanted to go to West
Charlotte, too. So he had a chance to go to West Charlotte. He graduated
from West Charlotte and went on to Morehouse. That's where his father
graduated from college, Morehouse.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

That's in Savannah.

ALMA ENLOE:

Right [Morehouse College is located in Atlanta, Ga.] And my mom Carey
graduated from West Charlotte, and she went on and got her bachelor's
from Johnson C. Smith, and her master's from New York University. They
were Lions, honey. William was in the marching band, too. They had the
glee club. They had little social clubs, too. You can look in there and
see those pictures. We were something else. And we go back and laugh,
"Look at your hair style!"

PAMELA GRUNDY:

It looks like there are a lot of good pictures. It must had been good
photography.

ALMA ENLOE:

Mr. Townsend was in photography.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

The newspapers. You all stayed busy.

ALMA ENLOE:

Yeah, we did. They had cosmetology where the ladies learned how to do
hair. They just had so many things to offer you then. I don't even know
if they have cosmetology in schools now.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

I don't know either.

ALMA ENLOE:

I don't even think they have that. We called it distributive education,
DE, where you worked and went.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

Here it is.

ALMA ENLOE:

I don't know if they call it that today or not, when you can leave
school early and you had a job that you could go to.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

These are wonderful pictures.

ALMA ENLOE:

That's right here. The bunch of twins that went to school.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

Oh yeah, these are all twins.

ALMA ENLOE:

All of them are twins. That's Peggy and Patty. Those were Saundra
Baker's sisters. This one is deceased now. She got killed in an
automobile accident. Vivian and Vera, they were in my class, the class
of '65. These two were in the class of '64. They were in the class of
'66. They were in the class of '63. These two here were in my class of
'65.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

Did you have nieces and nephews go to West Charlotte?

ALMA ENLOE:

Yes. Charlese went, Vonnie and Vennie. I think three. The other ones
went to Harding or Independence because it was the neighborhood you
stayed in. I used to tell my sister, "You're going to let your kids go
to Harding? You're not going to let them go to West Charlotte where you
went?" I said, "Give them mamma's address," so they could go. But, no,
they ended up going to Harding. It went on down the line. I guess one of
my little nieces or nephews tore the yearbook, because they were always
looking in them, too. We wanted you to be a Lion.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

Did your nieces and nephews as you were following them through school,
did they have the same kind of experience in high school that you all
did?

ALMA ENLOE:

No, I know they didn't. I don't think I ever talked to them. I didn't
have any children to go, so I don't know. If they did they discussed it
with their parents. They used to have good old peanut butter cookies. I
thought maybe they were still making those same peanut butter cookies
like that, so I gave my niece some money. "Bring me some of those
cookies." I bit into it, and I said, "No, honey, this is nothing like we
had at West Charlotte. Nothing like that." Things change.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

Do you follow the school much now?

ALMA ENLOE:

Well, I hadn't, because I've been here. I haven't stayed in my house in
three years because I stayed here to care for my mom Carey. I was going
to some of my class reunions. My class reunion is one of the active
classes. They really have stuff going. We won as queen this year at the
ball they had during Valentine's, right after that. My class queen won.
I'm going to start back going. I'm just trying to adjust right now and
get myself back to doing something. My life has been on hold. They keep
in touch with me. They send me the letters and everything.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

Well, what would you say if you were to think about it, just to kind of
finish up, your hopes for the future of West Charlotte and the future of
schools. What would you say that you would hope for the future?

ALMA ENLOE:

They just need to get it together. It takes not only the students, but
it takes people with backbones like your parents to initiate and
encourage kids. I'm sitting here talking about what we did. This is what
I would have done if I had a child. To teach him what we did, and he
could carry that on to somebody else, but if all the parents could only
do that and have that closeness with kids. I know a lot of them work.
They don't have the time. Our parents, a lot of them didn't work. Most
of them were housewives. The husband worked, the mother stayed at home.
You had that connecting thing. Going to PTA meetings and doing stuff
like that. I say today the kids now, it seems like they're out of school
more than they're in school. When we had teachers' work day coming up,
we were in school when they had those teachers' work days. The parents
came to the school to see how you were doing, and you were there.
"There's your mamma. There's your daddy." It's not like that. I guess
it's so big now it's just impossible to have it that way. It starts at
home. You can't expect the teacher to raise your child. You teach your
child at home and pound it in your child, he'll carry it on with him.
That's the way we were raised. We've never been in trouble or anything.
I just don't know. Starting at home, because when you're young you don't
know. You might have a black friend or a white friend or something like
that, but so many people got so much prejudice in them. They teach it to
their children. One thing happened to me in the grocery store. It was
this little white girl. Pretty. Had beautiful blue eyes. Her mother was
in front of me. Now this was a tiny little girl that wouldn't know about
color unless somebody had to teach it to her. So
she looked at me, and she smiled, and I smiled back at her. I said, "You
have the most beautiful blue eyes." Her mother said when she was born
that's the first thing they noticed when she came out and she opened her
eyes. She had those big, pretty blue eyes. So the little girl kept
saying, "Mommy, mommy." The mamma was trying to pay for her groceries.
She said, "What is it?" She said, "She's not dirty."

PAMELA GRUNDY:

Hum.

ALMA ENLOE:

And you could have bought the mamma with a penny. I said, now how does
that child know that? It had to be told to her that people of my color
are dirty. I was just standing there. I felt for the mother. She just
didn't know what to say. She couldn't say anything. And I didn't say
anything. She just said, "Mommy, she's not dirty." I know it was
embarrassing for her. That's why you have to watch what you say to your
children coming up. Teach them right from wrong. Like they say, if you
don't teach them they'll embarrass you, and that's what happened to her.
Just starting at home with them, instilling in them that they can be
somebody no matter what color they are. And I don't think you should
ever tell a child growing up that he's bad. Even if he acts up, never
tell him because the minute you tell him that's going to stick with him,
and he's going to always think he's bad, and he's going to do bad
things. It's just that way. When we were coming along in school if you
did something in the first grade it went all the way to the twelfth
grade because that teacher done told that teacher how that student was
and it carried on. It starts at home.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

I guess you would have known from your older brothers and sisters how
that would have worked.

ALMA ENLOE:

Oh yeah. I know one day I was at Double Oaks school. I've always ran my
mouth. I'm just outgoing. I don't meet a stranger, I don't care what
color. It means nothing to me because some of the best friends I have
are white. My sister, Floree, came home, "Mamma, you need to talk to
Alma Lillie. She just embarrassed us. She was sitting up on her knees in
the cafeteria running her mouth all over the table and everything." So,
mama got on me. It didn't happen no more. Somebody always told on you.
You just need to start at home. I think parents today, you can do
anything you want to do. With these kids coming up today you need to
make the time. Sacrifice the time, and think about your parents
sacrificing theirs for you. You do it for your kids, and you've got to
get involved with them to let them know that you're interested in what
they're doing and where they're going. But the parents are not like that
today. Some parents today, I've seen it, they act like they're scared of
their kids. I say, "Lord have mercy. That wouldn't have been in my
family coming up." It's sad. And you wonder when will it stop or when
will an end come to it. You've got to do that. You've got to start at
home. You should never expect a teacher to raise your child. You do the
raising. You get that support from that teacher. A lot of them think
that's what they want the teacher to do. Really. It starts with that
parent.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

There's been the bussing in Charlotte for so many years, and now there's
talk that they may stop doing it with this new court case and all of
that. What do you think about that?

ALMA ENLOE:

What, bussing kids? Well now they've got so many integrated
neighborhoods. I know it's hard getting kids up early and bussing them
this way. I don't see anything wrong with it. I can
say that because it never happened to me. But in order to get the
education that everybody deserves they've got to do that.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

You think still now they need to do that? You think it's still
important?

ALMA ENLOE:

Yeah, in a sense, but over on this side of town it's predominantly
black. I wouldn't say not bus to another school in order for that child
to get the proper education. Not that they won't get it here. Back then
they had the neighborhood schools. If you lived in that neighborhood you
went to that school. I don't see anything wrong with the bussing. They
bus some of them too far away, then by the time the kids do get there
they're worn out from riding. If by not being segregated they can offer
every child everything that child's supposed to get and not look at
color I can see staying in the neighborhood. They're not going to do
that. I don't think they will. But, like I said, there's a bunch of
white kids out there who want to go to West Charlotte. It just seems
funny because you never did see whites on this side of town. You see
more of them now than you see blacks. That's because they want to go to
West Charlotte and do everything they can to get there. To me it's a
powerful school. They've just got to have a little bit more teachers
sticking together and parents sticking together, and parents not
expecting the teachers to raise their kids. Do I talk too much?

PAMELA GRUNDY:

No. This has just been so wonderful, and I really do appreciate your
taking the time to do this. I'll just say unless there's anything else
that you feel like we haven't covered.

ALMA ENLOE:

Well, I can't think of anything. It will probably come to me when you
leave. No, I just can't think of a thing right now.

PAMELA GRUNDY:

I want to say this because I didn't get a chance to say this at the
beginning. This is Pamela Grundy, and I'm here interviewing Miss Alma
Enloe. It is the eighteenth of May, 1998, and we're in Charlotte, North
Carolina.